To this physician do you also commit the secrets of your conscience, and you shall quickly be healed; but if you neglect it, you shall be mocked for a long time. For He heals all without the wounding of the instrument, He who cured the woman without fee. For all physicians tend bodies, which are dissolved; but Christ cures souls, which are never corrupted. In short, you see Him in the reading, but you also saw Him in the telling, because it has been made manifest to you by believing. The centurion lost his dying servant, and was not seized by grief of mind, but sought out the master of healing. 'Lord Jesus,' he says, 'my servant now dies, but if You will, he shall quickly be restored to me' (Matt. 8:6, cf. 8). Boldly he asked, because he knew Christ could do all things.
nay rather, it was not boldness, but it was confidence. To whom Jesus said, 'Do you believe that I am able to do this?' And he: 'I believe, Lord' (Matt. 9:28). Then Jesus said to those following Him, 'Let us go and raise up his servant.' Then the centurion, with a still louder voice, dared to say before all the people, 'Lord, I am not worthy that You should enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. For I too am a man set under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it' (Matt. 8:8-9). As though he said to God, 'I command soldiers; do You command powers.' Greater was the woman's confidence, but the centurion's faith was praised.
And who praised him? He who healed both the servant and the woman. And in what manner He praised him, the evangelist has shown us: 'Amen I say to you, I have not found so great faith in Israel' (ibid., 10). Faith, in short, had not departed from the woman; but for the centurion it had gone before, hastening to Christ. Thus, when the centurion came and interceded also for his servant, faith made petition and obtained. And so again faith went before the centurion to the gift — not because it had forsaken him, but that it might show the divine gift to many. He touched the boy's side, offering him life with joy; and as though roused from sleep, He restored the house to gladness. A great physician, my brethren! It is a small thing that He gave healing to the wound; besides, He restored the soul to the corpse.
'And the centurion believed,' it says, 'and his whole house' (John 4:53). Behold, in what order one rightly believes, so the better one withdraws from faithlessness. SERMON 66. Again on the same subject. The station of a temporal physician is seen to be fixed in one place, where the medicaments of herbs give off their fragrance, and within its walls the instruments of healing gleam enclosed; and if perchance he be summoned by a sick man in the street, he cannot administer sudden medicine unless he has carried with him from his station the necessary instruments. But Christ went about wholly at once, because He was a physician not by art, but by power, not by diligence, but by clemency. The physician walked about carrying His station with Him, that is, the flesh He had mercifully assumed.
O station of piety, purity of flesh from the Virgin's womb, by which all the pain of the ailing world is healed! A father, interceding for his daughter, grasps the little handles of this healing station (Luke 8:42). Another, a modest woman, knocks at the handle with a furtive touch (ibid., 43). To her who steals it is opened; to the one of power it is deferred. He, the father, touching the handle, makes a sound by his intercession, the crowd waiting, the people following after, heaven amazed, death trembling. But the woman, chaste in her cause, secure in faith, so touched the handle of the station that she stopped the flow of blood before the voice of the confessor grew clear. The station is opened, the sick one feels it, and the crowd does not understand. The handle makes no sound, and medicine comes forth from the door.
The Holy Spirit goes forth from the temple of the Majesty; that subtle One makes no noise, and works the effect of healing. The physician, the maker, cries out, 'Who touched Me?' (ibid., 45) — not that there might be punishment for the one touching, but that public praise might be given to the one presuming. Spiritual faith went before, and the bodily touch wrought its work. But this woman also presumed securely: and He who healed willingly received. For to this end He came down, that He might be touched, that He might be handled. He who touches the mountains, and they smoke (Ps. 104:32), is touched by a woman and gives strength. For if the little body had not been made by Him, He would not willingly have received the touch.
And if the framework of members had not been made by Him, never would the woman's faith have led her to the spectacle, never would heaven be opened to gather such a theater. The sick woman knocked at the station, the Lord's flesh, the fragrant garment: virtue went out, and at once the flux stopped. And He says, 'Woman, your faith has made you whole' (Luke 8:48). Here a difficult way is opened to the woman, a narrow path, beset by the crowds, but laid open by the angels. Faith goes forth and cries, 'Make room, let the nursling of my virtues pass through, and let the faithful bondservant of a heavenly price come to her Lord, who by the price of His own blood desires to condemn punishment.'
He Himself was healing, and He was not ashamed of the touch of His own body — He who established the blood of the human body, He who made the ancient murderer, the innocent robber, on the cross. The Manichaeans and the Venustians go before Him and blush. They see and say that it is not a human body, but a divine work. He Himself who heals cries out and says, 'Did not He who made what is within also make what is without?' O modest cause, but free medicine! If indeed the work of human flesh were alien to Him, would He have established its blood? Would He have made public that virtue proceeded from Himself, and driven back tyrannical death? In the street a healing, in the house a raising. In the street the murderer is confounded, because the blood was stanched, and the accuser of blood lay prostrate.
Did He not Himself raise the girl lying on the bed? He enters the house, and takes hell captive. He calls back the soul from Tartarus, and lifts the body from the bed. Why then does He command that the raised one be fed, unless because the bodily members were His own, for which food was necessary as nourishment? Therefore the faith of the ruler rejoices in the Maker of the human body, and the modesty of the woman, and the restored girl, and the woman praised together, so that over things small and great heaven and earth may rejoice. SERMON 67. On the solemnity of the holy apostles. It delights to handle the pearls of such great saints, it delights to gaze upon the gems of the sweet fishermen. No measure in their color, no number in their virtue, a varied splendor and a diverse adornment.
If a blind man looked upon these stones, he was enlightened and shone; if a deaf man bore them, by the word of the Lord he received clear hearing. If a lame man looked upon these stones at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:2), he received his running, and entered the temple stoutly. Peter is witness, in the case of Tabitha (Acts 9:40), what the splendor of these pearls is, when so great a number of widows exulted. Therefore let us too esteem each one singly. Who, choosing Peter, would reject Paul? Who, seeking Andrew, would despise James and John? There is no diversity of names, because one is the crown of the gems, one the birthday of the Apostles, one the joy of the peoples. Every shipwreck is removed, the fear of pirates is shut out;
because the boats of the sweet fishermen come to the rescue. The shores are safe through the apostolic nets. Peter, at the prow of the heavenly skiff, triumphs on the shore: if you despise Andrew — one is the womb, one the use, one the innocent catch. Through the fish of the fishermen poverty was taken away; through the souls enclosed in the catch grace is shown, and the riches of the kingdom of heaven are made public. In Peter's skiff, who counts the fish? Who in Paul's Gospel counts the nations? Different names, and one catch. Behold, James and John, with their father neglected, their mother left behind, their net dropped, followed the most merciful Redeemer. Let there be, therefore, in the solemnity of the Saints so great a feast.
Behold, Matthew prepares the meal, and Christ the diner enters with a multitude of sinners. An innocent diner, and guilty guests, whence by the fellowship of His banquet He might make sinners rejoice in His sacrament. The Jews said, 'How does He eat with publicans and sinners?' (Matt. 9:11). No sinner is set apart, no guilty one is torn away. All are guests of Christ, the banquet is common to all. The solemnity of the Apostles prepares a meal of joys: the just man is fed with grace, the sinner is refreshed with indulgence. And though the Jews murmur, yet the guilty feast, made secure. 'You have prepared a table before me, against those who trouble me' (Ps. 23:5).
That Simon the Canaanite, who changed the name of his nation, and grafted his own flower into the crown of virtue, fitted by the hands of the Savior, shines forth in that crown adorned with fiery vigor. Judas the zealot, being zealous for the Lord, not seeking gain by selling Christ, was zealous for Him, not making a bargain over Him. For we find there set apart, of a blackened color, a little stone, Judas the traitor of the Lord, defiling his form by traffic. O the name! and by that name he was called, zealous I have been zealous for the Lord, the Lord Almighty (1 Kings 19:14) — and Judas the betrayer drew up cruel pacts: 'What will you give me, and I will hand Him over to you?' (Matt. 26:15). The one was zealous with love of the Lord; the other is shut out from the mark of the Lord's banquet;
but it delights rather to behold first Peter the fisherman, because it shudders to look upon the last, the traitor. He was cast out of the crown; the crown itself must be completed. He who was chosen ascended; he who wickedly betrayed hung himself. Who shall fill up the number in this crown of gems? The judgment of the divine lot is set forth: Christ loves Matthias from heaven (Acts 1:24), He who ordained the twelve (Luke 6:13) in the level palace. The Holy of Holies is opened, the golden urn is brought forth, as one truly adorned with heavenly gold. O good lot! which chose a disciple, that the crown of gems might remain entire, because Judas alone hung in the noose.
Behold, the twelfth shines painted before your eyes, a crown from whose aspect your congregation shines, breathed upon by living sparks. Where is that Vessel of election? Let him close the crown of piety, and the stone of the Gospel thundering to the whole world. Good the last, whom the first and the last chose. Saul the hard was made Paul the gentle. With what tools of the goldsmith was this stone fitted? The foundations of the prison shaken in the night bear witness, the chains of the guilty loosed, grace given to the jailer, and the crown of the Apostle approved. His feet were in the stocks, and his steps in heaven. Through the darkness of the prison he sang a new song:
so that on the last string of the thirteen chords of the readers' cithara the apostolic crown of saints may sing to you everlasting gladness. SERMON 68. On the martyrs. It delights to see the fields of grain with the golden stalks of ripened ears; it more delightfully pleases to attend to the fields of the Church, the martyrs' gleaming plants, innocent, from one gore through the blood of the Lamb. For the passions of the martyrs are the crops beside the courses of the waters (Ps. 1:3), watered by the fountains of tears. For thus indeed blessed David, before the reapers of joys, as a hireling with his cithara sang the purpled seedlings of the martyrs, the reaping harvest-song. 'They who sow,' he says, 'in tears, shall reap in joy' (Ps. 126:5).
Where do they sow in tears, if not beside the tree of the cross, where is the fountain nearest to the Savior? Thence from His side the drops of blood trickled, and by the rain of gore and water the endurance of the confessors was sown. From that very wood of the green cross, beside the fountain of blood, planted virginity flowered with chastity. Thence the planted endurance of the martyrs began to gather the purpled seedlings of its seed. For whence do the martyrs endure, if not through the Lord's cross? Whence do the martyrs, in whose hearts is the law of God, not fear the curses of men, if not because Christ the Lord patiently bore the reproaches of the Jews?
Whence did it delight the martyrs to enter the wards of prisons, if not because the Lord was led to the praetorium of the prince Caiaphas, and did not disdain to endure the nightly prison of the cruel praetorium, but said, 'I was handed over, and I did not go out' (Ps. 88:8)? Whence did the martyrs not care about chains and iron fetters, if not because Christ the Lord suffered to be held and bound by the Jews, because He broke the chains of death from the dead when already buried — He who said to those who are in bonds, 'Come out,' and to those who are in darkness, 'that they may see the light' (Isa. 49:9), and who said to Lazarus after four days already buried, 'Come forth' (John 11:43)? Handed over, He did not go out, because He was free within and without.
Therein the martyrs did not shrink from blows, because Christ offered His cheeks to the blows of the impious. Thence the poured-out most bitter violence of vinegar or mustard did not harm the martyrs, because the lips of Christ tasted vinegar and gall, a drink not worthy of such a One, from the impious cup-bearers, He who broke the rock for them and the waters flowed, and gave them to drink as in a great abyss (Ps. 78:15). Whence did the martyrs endure being stripped, and, though scourged, did not weep, if not because the Lord was stripped and scourged, and girded under Pilate the judge, from whom He Himself shall come to render judgment? Whence, set upon the racks, though furrowed with claws, in their distress with sweetest songs they made their labor with shame to the torturers;
if not because Christ the Lord ascended the cross, did not accuse His enemies, did not lament over His own injury, but asked pardon for His enemies, singing on the wood a holy song: 'Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do' (Luke 23:34)? This sowing, therefore, of Christ's blood made the seed of the martyrs sprout in the field of Mother Church: as David says, 'They who sow in tears shall reap in joy.' Going they went, and wept, and did not stand still, but weeping they went, and pressed on toward the eternal fatherland. The city was far off, and they wept, that they might reach where they longed. Thus they journeyed. How do they return? Not weeping, but rejoicing: no longer sowing, but bearing their sheaves with joyful neck:
they shall come not with heads covered by a veiling cloak against the heat, but with light upon their heads, and precious gladness. 'They that come shall come with exultation, bearing their sheaves' (Ps. 126:6), which they sowed beside the cross of the Lord, and reaped more happily from His resurrection: and they met Him in the clouds, offering Him their seedlings, about to receive things everlasting. O seedlings, which no flame burns! for they are beside the glassy river in Jerusalem, and perpetually grow green with the flower of the immortality of eternal life. They know not how to wither, because they did not fear to burn in the flames for justice, because the Lamb shall lead them to the living fountains of waters, and shall wipe away every tear from their eyes (Rev.
7:17), and they shall flourish like the lily in the midst of the angels. SERMON 69. On the birthday of the holy Maccabees. Bootes twinkles in the sky, clearly gleaming by the joining of its stars, but today the Church shines forth more with the mother by the seven stars of her sons (2 Macc. 7). For here it is not one star great in brightness and another faint in light, but all shine with brotherly charity: because they surround the Cluster of the Savior on the cross. No star of the sweet brothers here changes its station into a faint one, like a fading torch with its splendor dissolved, they who all retain a united confession, lest they forsake their true charity. Brothers from the womb, brothers in martyrdom, they rejoiced as germane as heaven.
How great a thing it is to behold the blessed mother, who, barren, bore seven, when with the seven spiritual stars of her sons' crown she migrated headlong to the city of Jerusalem. What shall we say? Seven angels glory with us in the precious fellowship of the solemnity. The Son of Man walks and moves in the midst of seven golden candlesticks (Rev. 1:13), in the midst of the blessed martyrs, and the mother sings a hymn with the legions of the angels. Here there is no alien enclosure of a wall between them: there is no silver candlestick there: there is no candlestick there mixed with the lead of sin. All are golden candlesticks melted in the furnace of passion, everywhere always before the throne, burning and shining; the heavenly Church rejoices, and that blessed mother.
O truly golden womb, whom the angelic host praises! Blessed David says to her with the lovely sweetness of the spiritual cithara, while the mother looks on amid the burning pots, 'He makes,' he says, 'the barren woman to dwell in a house as the joyful mother of children' (Ps. 113:9). 'Blessed,' it says, 'is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you have sucked.' O piety of maternal milk, in which fraternal kinship was not separated! The eagle rejoices in her lofty nest of mountains and rocks, over the dear offspring of her young; she nourishes as an eagle, and remains as a widow, when the young fly off to the carcasses.
This eagle, who covered her young with her feathers as with a shade, and set them upon her shoulders with the eloquence of good persuasion, flew with her young in the field, and with them rejoiced amid the meadows of paradise in heaven. None of these young ones under the covering of their mother's wings sought the carcasses of the dead, because they all contained within themselves the Holy Spirit. All were spiritual doves, not knowing how to brood upon carcasses. The tyrant wished to make of them at least one crow, not knowing how to return to the ark, and all the silvered-feathered doves groaned heavily, because they did not seek the carcass like a crow, but carried purple branches with scarlet beak to the Lord, together with their dove-mother.
What are these carcasses, which the young of this eagle despised for a temporal reward set before them? They were unclean flesh, polluted altars, defiled vessels; but they themselves were golden vessels proved in the furnace, seven times shining in the fire. 'Eat,' says the tyrant, 'of the flesh of your sacrifices.' And they: 'We are clean birds, not unclean. We have the meadows of heavenly sweetness; we do not want the putrid flesh of the tempter. Food of carcasses does not befit doves, but the chaste seedlings of the meadow-fields.' The tyrant is angered, and the mother's affection rejoices. He cuts off a hand with the axe, and they lift up their minds on the cross. The tongue is cut out, and the fraternal organs resound, which the mother, the mistress, was playing.
The brothers glowed with the Spirit, and cooled the burning pots; the frying-pans were heated, and the unleavened bread of the sweet brothers was baked. The skin was drawn from the head, and crowns were prepared for the head. Blessed they went forth shaven, they return crowned. But of these young ones of the most chaste womb the fowler of temptation wished to ensnare with the nooses of everlasting death. But he ran back to his mother, and sought again the sweet nest. He speaks to his mother in the Lord, and the mother receives the rest under the sweet covering of her wings, this seventh one, tender and immature in bodily strength. She bares her breasts, she shows to her son the dear nourishments. 'My son,' she says, 'do not defile my crown, and do not violate the fraternal concord.'
'Christ wove my crown, let not the enemy unravel it. Little children are wont, my son, to make themselves a crown better from reddening flowers, and to crown their innocent heads with saffron marigolds; if perchance a petal fall, struck by the hand of another child, how is the child's tender soul tormented? How much more shall I, who have not the flowers of the field, but hold spiritual flowers? I will not, I will not, my son, mar my crown by the plucking out of a single gem. There will be two evils: both Gehenna will swallow you up, and I shall not be more fully crowned.' The mother joined to her eloquence a precious stone to the gems, and made a sevenfold garland, which the whole host of angels carried with her to heaven. Who suffices to praise this mother?
The very womb is witness, for there was no such womb as that of this Maccabean mother. O mother of the sons of Zebedee (Matt. 20:20), she offered James and John as disciples to Christ; but seven martyrs of the Church came forth from one womb. The good mother promised her young, she flew as an eagle. Let our congregation rejoice over the mother and the sons. SERMON 70. On Job and blessed Perpetua. Let him who wishes to obtain perpetual victory not despise exile, who desires heaven. Let him esteem prisons as praetoria, who desires the paradise of delight. Blessed Perpetua, cast into prison, straitened by darkness, was enlarged by the light, because she presumed.
she changed the prison, put the darkness to flight, and, as an innocent one, triumphed not in prison, but in the royal hall. For all the holy martyrs too were bound with chains, and they themselves inserted their hands into the bonds of charity toward heaven. They were amid the darkness, and the joys of light flashed forth. The strong endurance of the blessed bore squalor and stench alike: because 'blessed are they who suffer persecution, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven' (Matt. 5:10). Fittingly and rightly shall we do, if we come to blessed Job (Job ch. 2) through the examples of the martyrs: because almighty God praised and honored him as a martyr. He was in squalor, the dung stank, and in his heart heaven was aflame. Thence, with the doors and upper gates opened,
and the upper gates, he took in the odor of sweetness, patience, endurance, charity. He who tested, He Himself also helped; He who had handed him over, He Himself also delighted him, showing him as with a finger of charity the treasures of the heavenly kingdom. The just man saw what he loved, and despised the various losses, because he always reckoned them as nothing. What are you doing, enemy? You take away gold — do you take the Lord? You take away silver — do you cut off heaven from my eyes? I know the hall of my Lord, the recesses of my Creator. How great there is the breadth of riches, how great the treasures of joys, in which the present ranks of angels delight with a daily revenue? You have taken from me thousands of bulls, herds of he-goats, the flesh of lambs.
I have a greater and purer sacrifice, wherewith to please my Lord, who will not eat the flesh of bulls, nor drink the blood of goats, but I sacrifice to Him a sacrifice of praise (Ps. 50:13-14), because He Himself has established for me an altar of charity, and He Himself is for me the priest of piety. I gaze upon His altar; I do not shudder at the heap of dung. You do not know, enemy, that my Lord raises up the poor from the earth, and lifts the needy from the dung, to set him with princes (Ps. 113:7-8). You have set me thus with worms; He above the tribunal of honor. I will not fear the gore of the flowing wound. You touch my flesh, He guards my soul.
The hall of the royal King is for me the heap of dung above the streets of the most beautiful city. You apply dung, and I do not wither. He supplies fountains, and I flourish. You will remain to me with your envy. These things the just man said with lips of patience, with the virtue of the struggle, with love of the crown. The putrefied wounds made ashes, and patience, to be crowned, put forth its bloom. For the crowner of patience was present: because the warrior had striven lawfully. What was the field? Merely a heap of dung. There was the battle-line of the tempter: the deserting angels, false friends, a crafty wife, and flattering deception, worms and wounds, gore and rottenness, dung, and bitterness. They were not broken off by nightly rest, the contest lulled, when the days rose, and the battle melted away.
The victory was hidden, and the life, because 'your life,' it says, 'is hidden with Christ: when Christ your life shall appear, then shall you also appear with Him in glory' (Col. 3:3-4). Behold, that which was hidden is revealed. Behold, from the heap of dung the uncovered crown flowered again: because the patience had ripened. He who prepared the crown was present, He tested and praised. He did not disdain to cling to Job above the heap of dung, to show the crown to the victor — He who in the paradise of delights sat to pronounce sentence upon the first cultivators, and the place did not prejudice, where the affection was pure. Therefore God was present to crown, He restores, He praises and multiplies.
He speaks to him now out of the whirlwind (Job 38:1; 40:6), that he might water the victor with the rains of dignity. He wiped him clean, he purified him, and likewise he adorned him. He who made the victor flourish, himself appointed him a priest, so that the just man, victorious for his own sake, might admonish his enemies as friends and slay a victim (Job 42:8). Thus, with his wound transformed and his mouth renewed, he who had sat rotting upon the dunghill now stood resplendent at the altar. For already he had stood forth as a priest in his own combat, and had offered sacrifice out of his victory, and had merited a crown for himself, and had entreated indulgence for his friends. Behold how great a good it is to endure the temptation brought upon us, that through Christ we may be worthy of the trial. To Him we say: And suffer us not to be led into temptation (Matthew 6:13).
He Himself will deign to deliver us from the present scourges, and to gladden us with the renewed grace of liberty, to whom we ought ever to proclaim our thanks. Let us turn to Him, the almighty Lord and everlasting Saviour. SERMON 71. Again concerning Job. Whoever is a friend of God is an enemy of the devil. The transgressor of justice hates the pursuit of divine worship. He strives to bind fast whomever he finds to be just, that he may make him his own bondsman. He stretches out and prepares a manifold snare, that he may carry off the soldier of God and likewise ensnare him. He longs to make his captive whomever he finds made fruitful by the joy of God. For he cannot bear to behold the form of the divine image.